Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

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Sermon
60

SERMON 60

Amir al-mu'minin also said:

Do not fight(1)
the Kharijites after me, because one who seeks right but does not
find it, is not like one who seeks wrong and finds it.

as-Sayyid ar-Radi
says: Amir al-mu'minin means Muawiyah and his men.

(1).
The reason for stopping people from fighting the Kharijites was
that Amir al-mu'minin was clearly perceiving that after him
authority and power would devolve on people who would be ignorant
of the proper occasion of jihad, and who will make use of sword
only to maintain their sway. And there were those who excelled
even Kharijites in holding and calling Amir al-mu'minin bad. So
those who are themselves in the wrong have no right to fight
others in the wrong. Again, those who are wilfully in the wrong
can be allowed to fight those who are in the wrong by mistake.
Thus, Amir al-mu'minin's words make this fact clear that the
misguidance of Kharijites was not wilful but under Satan's
influence. They mistook wrong as right and stuck to it. On the
other hand, the position of misguidance of Muawiyah and his party
was that they rejected right realising it as right and
appropriated wrong as the code of their conduct fully knowing that
it was wrong. Their audacity in the matter of religion reached the
stage that it can neither be regarded as a result of
misunderstanding nor can it be covered under the garb of error of
judgement, because they openly transgressed the limits of religion
and paid no heed to the Prophet's injunctions in comparison with
their own view. Thus, Ibn Abi'l-Hadid has written (vol. 5, p. 130)
that when the Prophet's companion Abu'd-Darda' saw utensils of
gold and silver being used by Muawiyah he said he had heard the
Prophet saying, "One who drinks in vessels of gold and silver
will feel flames of the fire of Hell in his stomach"
whereupon Muawiyah said, "As for me, l do not find any harm
in it." Similarly, creating Ziyad ibn Abih's blood
relationship with himself by his own opinion in total disregard of
the Prophet's injunction, abusing the descendants of the Prophet
over the pulpit, transgressing the limits of shariah, shedding
blood of innocent persons and placing over Muslims (as so called
Khalifah) a vicious individual and thus opening the way to
disbelief and atheism are events that to attribute them to any
misunderstanding is like wilfully closing eyes to facts.